Official Launch of the Fashion Market in Sansar

Today—finally!— is the official launch of Sansar’s new fashion market for user-created avatar clothing. In addition, Sansar has launched a first-of-its-kind integration with Marvelous Designer, the virtual fashion design software created by CLO Virtual Fashion Inc. and used by numerous mainstream brands and independent designers.

In fact, you can directly export from Marvelous Designer to Sansar (here’s a screen capture I took from a short promotional video that someone at MD accidentally shared too early on YouTube):

Here’s the whole video that was just reposted to YouTube!

Below is a two-minute showreel of the virtual costumes that have been designed using the Marvelous Designer software for the movies and computer games:

As I mentioned, fashions created with Marvelous Designer can now be exported directly to Sansar, where users can take advantage of realistic cloth simulation as they customize the fit and style on their avatars. Yes, in the Sansar avatar preview editor you can actually “tug” on your clothing by clicking and dragging with your mouse to adjust it before baking! (Try doing that in Second Life! Note that only MD-designed clothing will be adjustable in this way; the default rigged clothing you get when you sign in for the first time after this software update is not adjustable.)

For designers, Sansar’s fashion market also represents a significant new business opportunity. In Second Life, avatar fashions account for a major portion of the US$500 million user-to-user economy, and some virtual fashion designers have earned millions of dollars from their businesses. Onyx LeShelle alone, who is the creator of the very popular Maitreya mesh avatar body, clothing and footwear brand (in-world store, SL Marketplace, blog, Flickr photo stream), must be making a ton of money from her creations! I’m sure every vendor dreams of the kind of success that she has had.

“Our experience operating Second Life has shown how important and valuable user-created avatar fashions are, and with Sansar, we’re taking it to an exciting new level,” said Ebbe Altberg, CEO of Linden Lab. “Our integration with Marvelous Designer means that not only can you change what you wear, you can customize the fit and style to adjust how you wear it in Sansar. For example, you can roll up your sleeves, loosen your collar, and arrange your scarf just as you like it.”

“Innovative fashion companies, world-leading film and gaming studios, and creative hobbyists around the world are already using Marvelous Designer to create incredible virtual clothing designs,” said Jaden Oh, CEO and CTO at CLO Virtual Fashion Inc. “Our integration with Sansar is the first of its kind, and it makes it easy for our users to sell their creations in this new market.”

For a limited time, an extended 60-day free trial of Marvelous Designer will be available exclusively to Sansar users. New Sansar users must redeem their free trial offer within 90 days of account creation. Existing users can view their offer expiration date by logging into their Sansar accounts. I don’t know about you, but that’s a generous offer that I’m sure many people will snap up, if only to test it out and see what they can create using the software.

As Sansar’s first (and so far, only) fashion blogger, I eagerly look forward to seeing all the new outfits which Sansar’s talented creators will soon place up for sale in the Sansar Store! The starting pistol for the fashion market has been fired, and the race is on! And I expect to be joined by other Sansar fashion bloggers as the market begins to heat up.

(By the way. all the old avatar outfits that Sansar Studios had put up on the Store, the male and female cowboy, astronaut and Highlander outfits—taken down a couple of weeks ago in preparation—are now broken with this new release. That’s to be expected with a major update such as this.)

Here’s a few screenshots of the updated avatar customization section of the Sansar software:

Note that both the male and female avatars have baked-on underwear. No nudity allowed in Sansar!

The clothing that is highlighted in a green frame is what I am wearing. And you can layer clothing. So, for example, I can wear both socks and shoes at the same time.

Here’s a full list of all the new features in the Fashion Release, there’s a lot more than just fashion in this Sansar update! This is a major update with lots of new features. For example, the Sansar Atlas display in the software now includes a handy Upcoming Events listing along the right-hand side:

And another cool thing is that now our avatars look around themselves every so often! Debi Baskerville shared an animated GIF with us (you’ll have to click on the link to see it as I can’t figure out how to embed it here):